HCA wants trauma center fight bumped to state Supreme Court

From the News Service of Florida:

Hospitals affiliated with the HCA health-care chain are seeking a rehearing in
the 1st District Court of Appeal after a ruling this month cleared the way for
challenges to the continued operation of trauma centers at Blake Medical Center
in Manatee County and Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point in Pasco County.

Documents filed Friday also request that the appeals court send two questions
about the case to the Florida Supreme Court --- a process known as certifying
questions of "great public importance."

Four hospitals in the Tampa Bay and
Jacksonville areas have waged long-running legal battles against the trauma
centers at the HCA hospitals in Manatee and Pasco. The Florida Department of
Health allowed the trauma centers to open in 2011, despite a ruling by an
administrative law judge that the department had used an invalid rule in
approving the facilities.

The department later denied an attempt by the Tampa
Bay and Jacksonville hospitals to challenge the approvals, saying those
hospitals did not have legal standing. But the 1st District Court of Appeal this
month rejected the department's position and said the challenges should be heard
in the state Division of Administrative Hearings. The Tampa Bay and Jacksonville
hospitals --- Tampa General Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Bayfront
Medical Center in St. Petersburg and UF Health Jacksonville --- have long
operated trauma centers.

In the documents filed Friday, HCA attorneys took issue
with decisions made by a three-judge panel of the appeals court. One of those
issues involves the impact of the new trauma centers on the older facilities.

"It is inevitable and unavoidable that the opening of a new trauma center will
divert some trauma victims to a newly established, closer facility; by the same
token, those very trauma victims receive trauma center services more quickly
than they would otherwise,'' one of the documents said. While the HCA hospitals
are seeking a rehearing, the Department of Health did not file any similar
motions before a Friday deadline, an agency spokesman said in an email.